Unique all-purpose shelters can be made by local artists and
craftspeople, to provide protection against bad weather at bus
stops and elsewhere, to give neighborhoods natural gathering
spots and bulletin boards, ways to encourage help availability,
organize healthy exercise, enable resource-sharing, rides etc.

A campaign, over two years, from this Summer until late 2015, to
encourage individuals and small groups to work on designing and
building the next generations of human-scale urban transport
vehicles and neighborhood originated and operated,
Transportation/Information/Communications Stations.

Although we are celebrating the 75thand
50thAnniversaries
of the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs, instead of occurring only in
NYC, this effort will take place at the same time in myriad
locations. Wherever there is the interest, the tools and skills
needed and a place to work, a group may form and identify
itself.

Current wheelchairs and bikes do not provide weather protection,
places for passengers or gear, the whole array of creature
comforts and other features that would permit them to be used by
everyone at all times and ultimately replace, multi-ton,
industrial-scale, urban-unfriendly vehicles.

Unique all-purpose shelters can be made by local artists and
craftspeople, to provide protection against bad weather at bus
stops and elsewhere, to give neighborhoods natural gathering
spots and bulletin boards, ways to encourage help availability,
organize healthy exercise, enable resource-sharing, rides etc.

Local businesses, environmental, arts and education
organizations, former world's Fair exhibitors etc. will be asked
to offer support to local groups working on these projects, to
give them seed money, or in-kind contributions of materials and
services, to publicize and help transport their final products
to NYC

We will expedite hospitality for participants, to find Queens
residents willing to open up their homes to makers from their
original home cities. This place, with the most diverse
population on earth, is ideal to celebrate the universality of
ingenuity and curiosity and our problem-solving abilities.

The 11,000 locations of current payphones
were chosen primarily due to their potential to market their
advertising panels. There are 25,000 more locations no longer active
largely due to their relative lack of marketability, though they are
already wired and potentially suitable. Meanwhile, since the City's
new criteria focus on their value to our communities, to serve in a
variety of important roles, it is clear that they should now be
dispersed throughout the city, in every neighborhood, rather than
concentrated only at highly commercialized sites. Clearly, there
could be many more, placed carefully, to provide a comprehensive
system throughout the City.

The variations in terrain, pressure from
congestion and visual character of these diverse places suggests
also that the amount of space taken up by these objects, and their
relationships to the spaces around them must vary greatly, in order
to best serve our neighborhoods. While the core equipment, like
current phones, must conform to the existing communications and
information technology requirements, the ability to develop these
new facilities in such a way as to maximize their benefit to their
surroundings and in harmony with them, is not only possible but
vitally important as well.

One of the best networks of potential
locations for phones is the 9,500 existing bus stops not currently
served by shelters. Buses go where the people are and currently
these stops are provided with nothing more than a pole and sign and
map of the route. While many may be in sparsely-settled,
relatively-unsuitable areas, the majority are along streets with
substantial populations. There are currently no plans to
provide shelters there since the existing franchise is limited to
3,200 fixtures. Since cellphone and solar technology has enabled the
construction of a fully-functional facility without the huge expense
of trenching for power and connectivity, it is no longer necessary
to generate the amount of income from billboards that initially were
required to justify this work.

Connectivity:

These recent technological advances, along
with an infinite numbers of apps and other internet options, have
created the opportunity to offer economical and convenient
connectivity everywhere. We are now free to explore the potential to
re-define our public spaces in a variety of very meaningful ways.
Every plan you are being offered can take advantage of these
advances by partnering with the relevant suppliers, who are happy to
make their products and services available to anyone who can make
use of them. The utilization of this equipment to provide local
Wi-Fi, as well as everything currently online is neither expensive
nor technically challenging. The ongoing success of City 24/7 here
in the form of an easy to operate touch-screen is strong evidence
that this system is already within easy reach.

Creativity:

While current payphone design allows for some
variations, we are suggesting that, to the degree possible, every
one of these installations, aside from their “Equipment Modules” be
as unique as possible, rather than highly uniform. This can be
accomplished through the design and construction of “Umbrellas” over
each location, so calls can be made and work done without having to
protect oneself against falling rain or snow. Resting on strong
frameworks, which also support the solar cells powering the
facility, these creative constructions can be chosen through a
myriad of local design contests with strong preference given to
those living within the proximity of the object. Colorful, fun or
dignified, made of metal or cloth, these artistic statements can
also be a unique reflection of the communities which surround them.

This system can transform our City into the
friendliest environment for creative activity in the world by
developing the means to use these payphone locations as both sources
of art as well as being art themselves. Through enabling the screens
to constantly provide examples of local creative output, the
emphasis can be directed towards the work product of many of the
residents of all of our neighborhoods, both visual art, design,
musical and written expression etc.

To accomplish this you must design a program
that will attract the positive attention of the immense creative
community which makes New York its home and motivate them to relate
constructively to this new phenomenon. While some make their
livelihood this way, this is also an aspect of everybody's day to
day activity. (Improvising ways to contend with the challenges of
daily life is one way that we learn to appreciate the value of
creative thinking). Who knows that their next door neighbor is
a painter or graphic artist, a composer or performer? These
neighborhood bulletin boards can serve to introduce us to one
another and to help us appreciate the richness of talent of those
living here.

Visual Design:

Billboards are intrusive and largely
unpopular. Many feel that they cheapen the visual landscape. It is
also possible that they lower the real estate values of adjoining
properties as well. Since many people's living spaces, homes or
apartments, constitute their most important reservoirs of value,
this matters considerably. If these objects were artworks, unique
and well made, instead of brash advertisements, how would that
effect these values? Might it enhance them rather than diminish
them? Since the functional aspect of these devices has been shrunk
down to a small, thin panel, why not use the rest of the space in
the most aesthetic and wonderful way?

We think that this can be as important a
feature of this program as the technology being made available. If
screens are pointing upwards instead of outwards , as a rule, the
negative impact of them is eliminated entirely.

Functionality:

Survival is the paramount concern of a
substantial portion of our population. Finding satisfying and
rewarding work is an urgent need. Using these facilities to provide
a work exchange element, which can also be replicated online,
through the posting of local needed help is not only possible but is
already taking place. Running errands, walking dogs, painting
apartments, many tasks are always there to be accomplished and there
are already a host of websites devoted to this. Presenting their
availability through the posting of qualifications and references
improves the likelihood of satisfying these needs in the most
immediate and dependable way.

Re-charging
stations for computers and cellphones are an obvious use, but it is
also possible to vend or rent these items as well. This could not be
done everywhere due to security concerns, but modern vending
machines dispense everything today including such items. It has
become commonplace to do this in hotels and airports etc. and
“Automats” have been around for more than a century. Up-to-date
urban centers must develop the capacity to satisfy these needs
today.

Payphones can also be combined with other
kinds of needed street facilities, whether they be bus stops or new
types of newsstands. At selected locations it may be worthwhile to
fully enclose these information/communication/transportation
structures and make them suitable for temporary habitation by local
residents. Access at different times can be provided both to those
volunteering to man them on behalf of their communities needs as
well as those making a living. Income from this activity, can be
used to justify the expense of construction and maintenance. Just as
we once had 1500 sidewalk newsstands, this city and its historic
density and diversity make even such ambitious plans practical in
many places.

Community Impact:

Is the essence of this proposal, since the
implementation of this program could radically upgrade the
availability of both helpful information as well as actual physical
help. The interaction among neighbors today, almost everywhere
within the city is minimal. We usually do not even know our
neighbors names or what they do. This has its benefits in terms of
privacy and freedom from unwanted and un-needed intrusions into our
individual lives but it is a condition that many would choose to
change. Instead of waiting for a catastrophe to remind us how much
we have in common and can benefit from each other, it is time to
establish mechanisms to expedite these realizations. How many people
would join walking, Tai Chi or other exercise groups, help to
improve their own or others' health while meeting and getting to
know one another?

There are already numerous blogs designed to
help neighbors relate to one another much more closely. Many of
these have been put together by relatively young people and a
program to encourage their formation will expand this network
considerably. Should these communicators be given a physical
location close to where they live to “broadcast” this information
locally and include the capacity to enter information as well as
obtain it, this will make the formation of these mini-blogs even
more attractive. Since all of these efforts are voluntary, they will
cost nothing to construct and operate and may even help to generate
income for the program through advertising and other commercial
elements. The display of locally-produced artwork and other products
could lead to some commerce as well as greater awareness.

The object here is to aim high, to not
dismiss any idea or approach that could benefit this society so
greatly. It should take years to roll out ideas and test them
properly. Giving the public a chance to craft a stake in its own
public spaces is the key. “Re-owning the phone”, as Mayor Bloomberg
referred to this program, can well be the first step in “Re-owning
the neighborhood”.

An exchangeable battery pack takes up the
bottom portion of the cube. Most locations can have line power as
well.All construction is stainless steel.

Want to design an "Umbrella" for your corner?

Please consider planting your flag in your neighborhood.
Send in ideas and we'll put them on the site and try to help to make
them real. No promises, but how are we going to make sure we have
what we need if we don't begin to do our parts?

To the Prototype:

Sharing Umbrellas

We are inviting designs to be submitted of new human-powered and
electric-assisted human-scale vehicles including so-called
“wheelchairs”. We are most interested in concepts which incorporate
weather-protection and passenger-capacity but there are no limits on
type or style, speed or cost. Cargo bikes, recumbent, folders,
wheelchairs, public transit i.e. shared, or convertible from
commuter to commercial, Kinetic Sculpture and Velomobiles, all are
welcome. Pictures of existing machines will be featured and drawings
and models and descriptions are fine too.

The second element
of this endeavor has to do with the current conversations taking
place relative to the definition of public space, the role of
neighborhoods and their residents in that process and advertising in
this equation. At least minimal cover, an Umbrella-like object
should be available to the public at practically every bus stop
instead of only 25% of them. The proliferation of unique, attractive
and community-welcomed designs for these facilities, especially if
produced and fabricated by local residents, could, most importantly,
do much to help encourage a new level of healthy interactions among
those living and working here, even just those passing through.

Images and text from individuals and groups are already being
posted on SharingUmbrellas.org and will be updated regularly. Each
person will be included in the slideshow which plays on the home
page and provides a link to their own page. Some will also be
printed, in a full-color tabloid, issued monthly to begin, in New
York City and distributed to bike shops, book stores, newsstands and
cafes, and at gatherings of those most interested in these
developments. Other local groups working on these issues who want to
print their own local editions will be encouraged to do this.

One venue for showing off these devices will be New York City's
largest car-free space, Flushing Meadows/Corona Park in Queens. To
help celebrate the 50th and 75th Anniversaries of the 1939 and 1964
World's Fairs, in 2014 and 2015, this great public park will serve
as a natural backdrop for the public unveiling of our human-scale
transportation future. Craft, technology and the creative
imagination; sharing its most intriguing fruits; learning and being
inspired; all the wonders of an event that consciously endeavors to
be as inclusive geographically, culturally and socially as possible,
can help expedite the rapid evolution of this key feature in our
environment, how we get around.

How can the “Community Cube” be used to improve

The quality of life of those who are living here?

Health

Exercise

Walking

Around the block, as a starting point and to keep track

To nearby destinations for pleasure or utility

Historical/ Architectural/ Natural etc. tours given by local
residents

Can include different speeds from relaxed to brisk up to running

Mild competition increases motivation but no racing

Also benefits safety

In case of incident can seek or provide help

In numbers there is little chance of trouble

More eyes on streets in general benefits all

Stretching

In proximity of location, without interfering with pedestrians

Somewhat protected in bad weather as long as there is an “Umbrella”

Can include guidance from a knowledgeable neighbor or online
instructor